After dissipating in recent years, pro-mining pressure in Central America has mushroomed, drawing complaints from rural communities and green advocates that a surge of extractive projects will harm natural resources and human health.

Various governments across the region aim to attract mining investment—in some cases in countries that had curtailed extractive activity in the face of a powerful public backlash against the industry. That opposition, comprising broad civil-society coalitions that include the Catholic Church, finds itself on the defensive as the mining restrictions it worked for years to get enacted in several countries are suddenly under threat.

High government debt and anemic growth help explain why mining is drawing such keen interest, even from countries that had spurned it. According to the World Bank, Central American growth last year was the slowest of all world regions.

But many critics of the industry blame developed nations, too, asserting rich countries are placing unsustainable demands on the rest of the world for natural resources—and callously disregarding the environmental and public health toll being taken to satisfy it.

“In Central America, mining interests are on an offensive related to rich countries’ demand for metals, in some cases to carry out the energy transition,” says Pedro Landa of Honduras, a lay member of Churches and Mining Network, an umbrella group of Catholic organizations in Latin America. “They see our region as a big sacrifice zone. Central American governments are competing with each other for foreign mining investment, which strengthens the extractive model.”

Arguably the most dramatic about-face on mining has occurred in El Salvador. There, the unicameral National Assembly controlled by supporters of President Nayib Bukele voted on Dec. 23 to repeal a seven-year-old, across-the-board metals mining ban.

The move, made on an expedited basis, drew heavy criticism from environmental and religious organizations. Bukele announced his intentions in a Nov. 27 post on X in which he called the 2017 metals mining ban “absurd,” arguing that “responsible” mining could bring the country unprecedented economic and social development.

Bukele in June began a second consecutive five-year term even though his reelection was widely viewed in legal circles as a violation of a constitutional prohibition against serving back-to-back terms.

In his social-network pitch for renewed mining, Bukele said “studies” have identified large deposits of gold and other precious metals that could be mined in up to 14 areas of northern El Salvador. He did not cite sources for this information.

Also without identifying information sources, he said there could be 50 million ounces of underground gold deposits in “just 4%” of this area. He estimated the value of these at over US$131 million and said the entire area could yield quantities of gold that could exceed US$3 trillion.

The president’s pitch triggered intense opposition, with critics of the government decrying the damage large-scale mining would do to a country as small and densely populated as El Salvador.

Bukele defended his position at public events. At the Dec. 1 inauguration of a new highway in the eastern part of the country, he noted that every activity carries risks but called on Salvadorans to be confident and give the mining initiative a chance.

In doing so, he was relying on the political goodwill of a populace that until recently has given him extraordinarily positive approval ratings of over 90%, largely because of his crackdown on once-ubiquitous gang violence in the country.

But those ratings have shown declines in the early part of this year, likely in part because the push for industrial-scale mining is not going over well with the public.

Poll results released on Dec. 23, amid the mining ban’s repeal, showed that over 59% of Salvadorans believed their country is not a suitable place for metals mining. The survey, conducted by the Public Opinion Institute of José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA), found that over 61% of Salvadorans thought mining would have a negative environmental impact. And 49.6% of those surveyed said they believe the national government does little or nothing to protect the country’s environment.

While pressing to revive mining, Bukele has vowed to clean up all surface waters in the country. In doing so, he has asserted that mining opponents aim to maintain the current levels of pollution in the country’s rivers and lakes.

The president’s remarks are seen by many analysts as an attempt to spin widespread concern in El Salvador that industrial-scale mining will worsen the country’s already extensive water pollution problems.

The Salvadoran Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in 2017 issued a report concluding that over 90% of the country’s surface waters require more than the conventional levels of water treatment to make them fit for human consumption. Some experts estimate that currently this figure is likely in the neighborhood of 95%.

The legislative push to repeal the mining ban got underway on Dec. 20, when the Economy Ministry sent the National Assembly a bill to overturn the prohibition. In an unusual move, the Assembly scheduled the bill for discussion the next day, a Saturday.

Committee discussion of the legislation was assigned to the Assembly’s recently created Investment, Technology and Tourism Committee. The body discussed the bill for less than two and a half hours and invited the opinion of just one person—Daniel Álvarez, the government’s director of hydrocarbons and mines.

When Álvarez was questioned by the 12-member committee’s lone dissenter, Claudia Ortiz of the Vamos opposition party, he acknowledged that no studies had been done in connection with the mining-ban repeal proposal. He said such studies would be conducted once the legislation was approved. Whether they’ll be publicly available is an open question, however. This month, the government said all mining studies it conducts are classified, declaring them “commercial secrets.”

Of the repeal bill’s 35 provisions, the one that has attracted the most attention is the sixth. That provision puts the government in charge of mineral exploration and extraction and authorizes it to set up state companies for the purpose without consulting the Assembly.

Without making any changes to the repeal proposal, the committee agreed to send the measure to the full Assembly for a floor vote. Two days later, the Assembly approved the repeal 57-3.

There is no shortage of other examples of rising pressure for mining projects in Central America.

Costa Rica, long considered a leader in environmental protection in Latin America and the world, has had a ban on open-pit mining in place for 15 years. But in November, President Rodrigo Chaves announced he will create an exception to allow the resumption of large-scale gold extraction specifically in Crucitas, near the country’s border with Nicaragua.

Open-pit mining typically causes widespread scarring of the land and often involves the use of cyanide to extract precious metals from crushed ore, raising concerns about possible spills. Chaves argues that in the Crucitas area, artisanal miners are illegally extracting gold and causing extensive pollution while bringing no benefit to the government.

“Crucitas, in the north, is the country’s poorest area and it is true that since 2010, when industrial [mining] was prohibited, an alternative development [model] was not found for the local population,” says Jeffery López, director of the Ditso Organization, a Costa Rican environmental nonprofit. “But now we know that this project would open the door for open-pit mining in the rest of the country. The environmental policies that Costa Rica is known for are being weakened and today, without a doubt, the government sees environmental questions as an obstacle to [the country’s] development.”

Honduran President Xiomara Castro in March 2022 imposed a ban on open-pit mining and said the government would review existing mining concessions to gauge their compliance with environmental regulations. Since then, no new open-pit permits have been issued. But mining opponents say that at least three open-pit operations underway in 2022 are still ongoing and that one such mine is operating with an expired permit.

In Guatemala, no mining prohibition has been declared, though some projects have been suspended due to environmental and human rights concerns. But with pressure for mining building, Guatemalan community and environmental advocates are calling on the government to declare a moratorium on new mining permits and to examine whether current projects comply with regulations.

For its part, the dictatorship of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has eagerly courted foreign mining investment and has stifled civil society groups that disagree with the government, including those that might raise concerns about mining impacts.

Last November, the Nicaraguan government awarded a new 25-year mining concession to the Chinese mining company Xinjiang Xinxin, bringing that company’s mining concessions in the country to over 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres).

And in Panama, lawmakers in 2023 enacted a still-ongoing ban on new mining projects following large public protests against a vast copper-mining operation 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Panama City.

The protests had begun a month earlier when the government, with legislative approval, renewed the copper mining concession for 20 years. Work at the mine, operated by the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals, was suspended on Nov. 3, 2023 by order of the Supreme Court. The court subsequently canceled the contract on grounds the project violated certain environmental regulations and lacked community consultation.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in December that his government would study how to prevent environmental damage from the copper mine. While suspension of operations eased tensions, activists remain wary.

“There are important groups around President Mulino that promoted mining,” says William Hughes, an economist at the University of Panama. “At any time we might have another struggle like the one in 2023.”

Pro-mining pressure expected

Critics of the industry do not see the move toward mining stopping anytime soon.

“We predict a 2025 in which it won’t be easy to achieve mining-free territories,” the Churches and Mining Network said in a recent prepared statement. “In 2024, we have seen the strengthening of laws in the region that are criminal [with respect to] the environment, backed by political forces that support an extractivist model plagued by corruption and business interests that only leaves misery and division in the impacted towns.”

Pedro Landa, the Churches and Mining Network member, says the Catholic Church began to weigh in against mining in the region in 2015, when Pope Francis issued “Laudato Sí',” or “Praised Be,” an encyclical in which he made a plea for environmental protection. Mining opponents credit the church as an influential participant in their grassroots campaigns. But experts say economic pressures combined with a weakening of democratic institutions have created a political opening for mining companies, one that has given the extractive industry outsized agency and clout.

“Along with the growing world demand for mineral resources, there’s a strong decline in democracy in Central America,” says Ingrid Hausinger, ecology coordinator in El Salvador for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a Berlin-based think tank associated with Germany’s Green Party. “[T]his makes it easier for mining companies to replace the state and enter [national] territory, sometimes without environmental permits and sometimes with permits that should not have been issued. Governments are desperate to generate investments and the companies corrupt them.”

Experts fear stepped-up mineral extraction and pushback by rural communities will lead to more of the attacks that already rank Latin America first in the world when it comes to violence against land-rights defenders.

Honduran activists cite the shooting death on Sept. 14, 2024 of Juan López, who led opposition to a mining project planned for Montaña de Botaderos Carlos Escaleras National Park. (See "Region looms large, again, in advocate-murder tally" —EcoAméricas, September 2024.)

Activists to be retried

In El Salvador, anti-mining advocates point to the prosecution of six men who for years had led strong local opposition to El Dorado, a precious-metals project that was slated in north-central El Salvador by the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim.

That opposition, and a decision by the government to withdraw exploration permits for the project, precipitated a standoff. Pacific Rim eventually filed a US$100 million claim against the Salvadoran government at the World Bank International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

In October 2016, the ICSID ruled in El Salvador’s favor and against OceanaGold, an Australian company that had acquired Pacific Rim. A year later, El Salvador imposed its across-the-board ban on mining.

The six men who had campaigned against El Dorado were arrested in January 2023 on charges of killing an alleged Salvadoran Army informant in 1989, during the country’s civil war. The defendants, former leftist guerrillas, asserted the government had cynically used a single, unreliable witness’s claims in connection with the long-past civil war as a reprisal for their more recent anti-mining advocacy.

After 21 months of legal proceedings, a regional court on Oct. 18 declared the six men innocent, freeing them. But prosecutors challenged the ruling, claiming the trial court had not considered all the evidence.

On Nov. 26, a day before President Bukele announced his push to repeal the mining ban, an appeals court threw out the verdict that had declared the six men innocent. The men must now be retried.